Forum:The Attack on Castle Heterodyne
Specifically, the first one, that saw the death of Klause Barry, and Lucrezia's disappearance. Traditionally, the assumption had always been that the attack was by the Other, sparking that war. We know Lucrezia was the Other. We know she was planning something over two years earlier, because she drugged Klaus. But if the Other War wasn't the plan? What if, while she was planning whatever Klaus wouldn't approve of, an unknown third party attacked the Castle. The damage is severe, and falling debris kills her infant son. As a result of seeing her son be killed in such a senseless manner, she goes insane. She scraps the original plan, and uses the framework she had built for it, ie the Geisters, Knights of Jove and Slave tech, and uses it in a new plan to conquer Europa, much like Klaus would later, to stop the chaos that caused it, and find out her killed her son, and wreak holy vengeance upon them. This of course, begs the question of who did the original attack, killing Klaus Barry. This is probably extremely wrong, but if I'm on to something, it completely changes the accepted perception of Lucrezia and the Other.--Necrotas 17:32, February 18, 2010 (UTC) : Would you then have to ignore the events (and specifically dialogue) at Sturmhalten? When Agatha is updated by High Priestess Vrin, it seems to indicate that, if not the original plan, Lucrezia has established herself as the Other among the Geisterdamen long before they were used in the Other war. Furthermore, she does not seem above using her daughter as nothing more than a host (could be wrong here - Lucrezia did seem to consider promising Agatha to Tarvek). If this callous attitude is displayed concerning her daughter, who is to say Lucrezia would be any more emotionally attached to Klaus Barry. Major.stubble 20:44, February 23, 2010 (UTC) :: Well, yeah. The Geisters, Knights of Jove, etc. are the framework I was talking about, that would have already existed. Also, she established herself as the Geister's Goddess. The term "The Other" was attached when the war started, and is what the Europeans called her. The two happened to correspond, but the fact that traditional images of her imply a fertility goddess, not a conqueror, implies that the correspondence is a coincidence Lucrezia took advantage of. Also, about the body stealing, keep in mind this entire point centers around Lucrezia going completely insane by Klaus Barry's death. Making the connection that one child is just as important as another, is something that sane people do, not grief-maddened sparks rampaging around on a trans-continental temper tantrum.--Necrotas 21:21, February 23, 2010 (UTC) :: Fair enough. I am not denying that there is a certain symmetry to your theory. To which, it really comes down to Lucrezia's motivation and desired outcome concerning the conquest of Europa. If this was a grief-induced reaction, as you suggest, then it is quite possible that she saw her campaign as a way to either prevent such events from occurring to others (much like Agatha's reaction to the death of Lars: "No one will ever hurt anyone else I love ever again..."); or as revenge. :: To this end, I would be interested in your answer to these core concerns: :: Why did the war target sparks? I contend that this was the result of a primary motive of the Other. For your scenario to work, you would need to identify Lucrezia's motive. The easy answer would be that Lucrezia's grief would be assuaged by such genocide. As such, this may be important in identifying the unknown third party. :: Who "murdered" Lucrezia's assistants and burned her notes, and why? I contend that the assistants could only be murdered by someone they trusted. Hetrodynes surround themselves with talented, highly-devotional individuals. I can only assume that Mongfish would also have talented, highly-devotional assistants that would be devious to the point of near-criminal suspicion of others. Remember, Carson von Mekkhan didn't say Lucrezia's assistants died defending their mistress. They were murdered. So, either it was Lucrezia, or this unknown third party was trusted or significantly more skilled than her assistants. Lucrezia is most likely to have burned her own notes, but the motive would be key. --Major.stubble 17:21, February 24, 2010 (UTC) : ::: Targeting sparks has quite a simple explanation really, that has nothing to do with any kind of motivation. Until the special one was developed after the War ended, slaver wasps could not take over sparks. It then becomes a simple matter of, If they can't be controlled, they will be destroyed. Also, they pose the risk of analyzing the technology and developing a way to fight it, or simply making something bigger and badder. Basically, sparks were the only thing that could have stopped her, regardless of motivation. ::: And the identity of the hypothetical third party is the million-dollar question. It could have been some shadowy conspiracy out to eliminate the Heterodyne line for the good of Europe, it could have been someone who discovered her hypothetical first plan, or it could have been some random warlord who thought the Boys were weak, and Mechanicsburg would be an easy target. About the murders, well, the whole thing rests on insanity and irrational thought. Killing the servants and burning the notes could have been symbolic of abandoning the first plan. Or, and this works regardless of the original theory I put up there, the servants were loyal to her, and there was a fight between them and some of Barry and Bill's retainers that discovered what was going on. Honestly, I've yet to find any reason to believe that Bill and Barry didn't know she was the Other, in fact Klaus seemed to know it already, when he ran into her in Agatha's body; this could be how they found out. But I digress, and will end it here.--Necrotas 18:10, February 24, 2010 (UTC) :::: When preparing to go to Sturmhalten, Klaus tells Bang that the similarities between the Other's work and Lucrezia's had made him think it was her, despite the difference in skill level, but that he was rethinking the conclusion now that he knew Lucrezia had a Heterodyne daughter. He was still trying to give Agatha the benefit of the doubt at that point, though, up until she wasped him and gloatingly told him exactly what she'd done. PersephoneKore 13:36, February 25, 2010 (UTC) I agree with a lot of the above, with some slight twists. I postulate that the 'third party' is The Other, in the form of the Enigma. Lucrezia, ever the bad girl, knew about Geisterworld long before, since she grew up near the portal...in fact, time runs faster there (or she had access to time travel) so that she has appeared to them . Maybe she played around in Geisterworld, that's how she got so good at manipulating lifeforms (you'd need long timeframes to do it right). Somehow, she attracts the attention of the Enigma (from the future? some entity with access to hyperdimensional portals, aka Time window). The Enigma travels to Castle Heterodyne on That Fateful Night and battles a pregnant Lucrezia, who manages to escape to Geisterworld and begs them to save the Holy Child (Agatha). Now, a little fuzzy here, either the Enigma comes or the Heterodyne Boys, but the end results are: * Enigma takes over Lucrezia, not a replacement personality but a merge (=Other) ** Maybe Enigma = Lucrezia from a far (bad) future? We may be being prepped for alternate future universes by Othar's Tweet-ventures ** Must be a merge personality at least because Lucrezia-in-Agatha (or, more exactly, what comes out of the Summoning Engine) has all of Lu's memories & personality quirks...even Klaus * Other returns to Castle Heterodyne, murders her assistants, and starts the Other War ** Happens in our time all the same night, but longer time on Geisterworld ** Other War concentrates on Sparks because, yeah, they're the only competition * Barry ends up saving Agatha and hides out with her, Punch & Judy ** Bill doesn't make it...or he's trapped in hyperdimensions somewhere A lot of this is pure speculation...but hey, that's what forums are for, right? CaptMorgan 21:15, February 24, 2010 (UTC)